Archive for February, 2007

I dont’ know if it’s only available through Texas Roadhouse or not, but you can get it at their restaurants (some anyway; each restaurant seems to have different Willie Nelson items) and their web site at www.texasroadhouse.com

On April 29th, Willie Nelson and Texas Roadhouse released the Nacogdoches Sessions, a rare and previously unreleased acoustic recording of traditional standards featuring the late legendary players, Paul Buskirkand Paul Schmitt.

These live sessions, recorded in 1997 at Encore Studios in Nacogdoches, TX, are the last recordings Willie would share with his teacher, friend and world renowned mandolin player, Paul Buskirk.

Buskirk dedicated much of his life to music education and the Nacogdoches Sessions will carry on that tradition by creating educational opportunities through scholarships established with record sale proceeds. The Nacogdoches Sessions also represent the only live session recordings of traditional standards performed by Willie Nelson.

Â Hi..I’m a rocker, but I love Willie Nelson’sÂ lead playing. Â Is there any old Willie albums that sorta showcase his lead guitar playing?Â I love his acoustic guitar that he’s played for decades, too.Â Thanks!

It’s a 1969 Martin nylon string (classical) guitar, and considered to be one of the best acoustic guitars in the world, despite (or because of??) the additonal soundhole. It’s not a baritine but a standard size guitar.

Willie’s been playing it almost exclusively (except when he plays electric for the blues) for over 30 years. His song I’m Falling in Love (from the Greatest Hits double CD) has a wonderful guitar solo, very inventive. There’s some nice guitar work on Red Headed Stranger, the seminal, turning point album that won him a Grammy and brought him the fame he deserved. The name of the guitar is Trigger, according to Rolling Stone Magazine:

Willie Nelson a country music hero and an American legend whose career spans nearly half a century, is one of the most distinctive and popular musicians in the world.Â Nelson bought his first Martin sight unseen in 1969. He remembers the unusual circumstances:

“The Baldwin company gave me a Baldwin amp and classical electric guitar with a special three-cord stereo pickup. I busted that guitar up pretty badly so I sent it up to Shot Jackson in Nashville to get it fixed. He called back and said, ‘I can’t fix it. It’s broke too bad.’ I said, ‘Well what else have you got around?’ He said he had a Martin up on the shelf for $750. I asked if he could put that same Baldwin pickup in the Martin. And that’s how I got it, right off the shelf, unseen from a thousand miles away. When I got it I knew that I had picked up something special. I like to just sit around in a room and play it. I like to write on it. I just like the sound of it.” Photographs taken throughout Willie Nelson career show the gradual evolution of his famous guitar (nicknamed Trigger) from its pristine new condition to its current weathered look. Much like Willie this famous guitar has come a long way. Trigger has been played so much, there is a rather sizable hole worn right through the top, one that Willie considers so sentimental, he won’t have it repaired. In addition, Nelson estimates that he has 100 signatures on his Martin including those of Leon Russell, Roger Miller, Kris Kristofferson, Gene Autry, Johnny Cash, Waylon Jennings, lawyers, football coaches, and other friends and associates.

When asked why his guitar is named Trigger, Willie explains: “Roy Rodgers had a horse named Trigger. I figured: “This is my horse!”

And what’s so special about this guitar? Willie says: “It has great tone!” Most recently on his widely acclaimed album “Spirit” and on several soon to be released new songs, he has been recording with Trigger and nothing but a single microphone. The guitar simply embodies that Willie Nelson trademark sound.

“For a while there, a Willie Nelson Picnic was like Fear and Loathing in Texas.Â Whatever it was you were looking for, you were gonna find it there, I assure you.Â There was nothing that did not get smoked, ingested, made love to, or done at some point at one of those picnics.Â It was glorious.Â Everybody was into free sex and good cheap Mexican weed and cold Pearl beer and Shiner and smimming naked together.”

“Johnny Bush is one of my oldest and dearest friends. He and I started out together in music, and we’re still together. Everything that’s been said about me in this book, good or bad, is pretty accurate.”

â€”Willie Nelson

It seems appropriate that Willie Nelson has written the forewardÂ to Johnny Bush’s autobiography:Â “Whiskey River (Take My Mind), which will be availablle for purchase next month.Â Â Â

Whiskey River (Take My Mind): The True Story of Texas Honky-Tonk is the story of the golden age of Texas country music in the 1950s and ’60sâ€”where that music came from and where it has gone. Bob Wills, Moon Mullican, and George Jones are part of this story. So are Charley Pride, George Strait, and Junior Brown. Over the course of the past half century, Johnny Bush has crossed paths with virtually everybody who is anybody in country music, and at some point they all turn up here, usually accompanied by a priceless anecdote or two.

The book is also an unflinchingly honest accounting of one man’s life, the “kid from Kashmere Gardens with mud on his shoes,” as Bush refers to himself. In fact, I can’t recall another country autobiographyâ€”and I’ve read quite a few of themâ€”in which the author has been so brutally honest, both in assessing his own personal shortcomings as well as in stating his professional opinion of what has become of the music to which he has devoted his life. Bush minces few words when discussing his disdain for mainstream contemporary country music, which in his view has gained the world only to lose its soul.

This is no smiley-faced Nashville whitewash job. Whiskey River (Take My Mind): The True Story of Texas Honky-Tonk is everything a book about country music ought to be and almost never is. Bush’s tale is equal parts funny and tragic, smart and stupid, happy and sad, sacred and profane.

Johnny Bush’s stature within the tradition of Texas honky-tonk music cannot be accurately measured by an objective appraisal of his national chart successes. No, he is not a household name like his friends Ray Price and Willie Nelson. Nor is he Bob Wills, Ernest Tubb, Hank Thompson, Lefty Frizzell, or George Jones, although he’s known all of them and shared a bandstand with most of them in a career spanning more than fifty years.

But to those people everywhere who really know and love country music, Bush is more than a household name. He is a hero

www.thedailykos.comÂ posted this interesting article about the grassroots campaign to establish a Department of Peace, which is supported by Willie Nelson, Walter Cronkite, Flea, of the Red Hot Chilli Peppers, Steven Tyler of Aerosmith, Joaquin Phoenix, Tyne Daly and many others.Â The Department of Peace DOPÂ
(http://www.thepeacealliance.org) has broad support, with 60 cosponsors in congress thus far.

â€¢ Establish a Secretary of Peace as a member of the President’s Cabinet to research, articulate and facilitate violence prevention and conflict transformation solutions domestically and internationally.

â€¢ Establish the Academy of Peace to train men and women in the cutting edge methods of violence prevention, conflict transformation and peacebuilding skills.

Despite an epidemic of violence, proven solutions already exist. They are under-recognized, under-resourced, and underutilized. The campaign for a Department of Peace (DOP) recognizes the science and research in the emerging field of peacebuilding and proposes a comprehensive approach to reducing violence both domestically and internationally. Â

Because prevention is so much less costly than crisis response â€“ the proposed annual budget for the DOP is only around 8 billion dollars. Yet, establishing a DOP stands to save countless lives and billions of dollars.

A white paper published by the Peace Alliance further illustrates the common sense and cost effectiveness of peace-building strategies.

In advocating for the DOP, we seek to have the US Government recognize and embed state of the art thinking about violence prevention and conflict transformation as key elements of both foreign and domestic policy.